Several Afghani leaders have been evacuated by India. While it is being said that many more are yet to be evacuated, India is continuing its legacy of supporting Afghanistan. An Air India flight AI-243 brought in a total of 129 people from Afghanistan including former Afghan MP Jamil Karzai and Rizwanullah Ahmedzai, an advisor to now dethroned Afghani president. A woman who arrived at the Delhi airport broke down saying – “I cannot believe that the world abandoned Afghanistan.” She could only add- “our friends are going to get killed. They [Taliban] are going to kill us. Our women are not going to have any more rights,” before breaking down.
Former MP Jamil Karzai described Ashraf Ghani’s team as a traitor who betrayed the people of Afghanistan, while Rizwanullah Ahmedzai described the situation in Afghanistan as mostly peaceful. He said that Taliban hadn’t done any harm to political leadership in captured provinces while it is also allowing women to go to schools and colleges in a Burkha. Afghan MP, Abdul Kadir Zazai said- ‘’ There was a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. It was just a handover process. Now, the situation is calm in Kabul’’. Syed Hassan Paktiawal, an MP from Paktia described his arrival as temporary and claimed that he boarded the Air India flight only to attend a meeting and will go back to his country.
Kabul airport has emerged as a ray of hope for the people in Afghanistan. After US troops finally withdrawing from Afghanistan and wasting two decades in a lost cause, Kabul Airport is the only facility under the control of the USA and its allies. As news of the Taliban blocking almost all roads heading towards the coveted Hamid Karzai international airport arrived, the USA has decided to send 6,000 more troops within 48 hours to guard Kabul Airport.
With the Afghani civilian President flying out of the country moments before the presidential palace fell to barbaric Taliban fighters, Kabul airport has seen astronomical proportions of people fleeing the country gathering in its premises. The Pashtun majority landlocked country has no sea route and all the roads heading toward the borders of the neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China have been occupied by Taliban fighters. With nowhere to go for Afghan nationals and people involved in providing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as well as Foreign Consulates, thousands of people are stranded in an area of 3,511m of the airport.
India has recently mounted its efforts to evacuate its citizens from Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban approaching Kabul. The Indian embassy is still functional in Afghanistan as it has a huge workload of evacuating its citizens, political leadership of Afghanistan, human rights workers, media personnel, members of minority communities and people who have worked with the Indian government. According to the sources, India has a C17 Globe master aircraft on standby for quick mobilization in case the situation demands it. India has performed similar evacuations in Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat province while the Taliban captured these provinces en route to Kabul.
Other countries and organizations like NATO are also in line to evacuate their citizens and Afghani civilians from the country. NATO members are sending troops back to Afghanistan to evacuate their citizens, while the USA has planned to help thousands of Afghans under its special immigrant visa plan or as refugees. On the other hand, US neighbour Canada has announced that it will take in up to 20,000 Afghan refugees including women leaders, government officials of Afghan civil leadership and other people facing threats from Afghanistan.
In the wake of mayhem happening all around Afghanistan along with a Pakistan backed Taliban leadership occupying the Presidential palace a few kilometres away, the Indian embassy is doing its best to coordinate with the Indian government. While Pakistan, on the other hand, is providing Taliban with all kinds of support required to crush the innocent people of Afghanistan, India has been saving people involved in establishing the war-torn country as a civil state. After pumping in an infrastructural boost of more than $3billion in Afghanistan, the evacuation of Afghan Civil leaders by India will once again emphasize that India is totally committed to having a democratically elected government in the region while Pakistan continues to destabilize South Asia with more violent regimes like Taliban and its own military establishment.
